Monday, April 12, 2004

It has been suggested that I do a roundup of antidepressant outcome
studies. The previous article demonstrated why there is a
discrepancy between the results of some studies, and the widespread use
of antidepressant medication, but it does not address the question of
whether the drugs actually work. It will take a while for me to
write anything approaching a thorough review. In the meantime,
those curious enough to read a journal article on the subject can see A Systematic
Review of Newer Pharmacotherapies for Depression in Adults: Evidence
Report Summary. (PDF is here.)
This article is a review of many studies, in an attempt to determine
what the results would have been if all the individual patients had
been recruited into a single large study. (This is called a
meta-analysis.) It is accompanied by a different
article (PDF),
which is a set of treatment guidelines. Folks who are really
ambitious can read the online book, Outpatient
Management of Depression, by Sheldon Preskorn.

The link below goes to a dummy account that automatically forwards email to the Federal Trade Commission's spam reporting service. Don't use it unless
you are a robot. Instead, act like a human and figure out the real address from this: joseph/dot/j7uy5/at-sign/gmail/dot/com

The Corpus Callosum is an occasional journal of armchair musings, by an Ann Arbor reality-based, slightly-left-of-center regular guy who reserves the right to be highly irregular at times.
Topics: social commentary, neuroscience, politics, science news.
Mission: to develop connections between hard science and social science, using linear thinking and intuition; and to explore the relative merits of spontaneity vs. strategy.